Sometimes both.

--

If he is calling your attention to bananas, for instance, you look at the fruit and hear the price, then you take them, providing, of course, that you are in the market for bananas, and that you are favorably impressed with the quality and price.

But suppose this man, instead of having the goods with him, were calling on you to buy some bananas in another part of the town,

Would you be likely to pay any attention to him if he simply shouted, "Bananas! Bananas! at No. 17 Main street, four blocks up?"

And if you were indifferent to such a cry, how much less would you be interested if the man was talking about bananas which were located a thousand miles away?

THE MORAL: Advertisers should tell something about their goods.

A very successful bicycle salesman said to the writer, recently, "The time has gone by when we could sell bicycles by 'talking.' The only talk

that really counts after the goods are shown is that necessary to tell the price and what the seller will guarantee. Most customers seem to have their own ideas as to looks and running qualities."

"Junius" hit the very heart of advertising when he said —

"It is necessary to establish the truth of your first proposition before you presume to draw inferences from it."

THE SCHEME.

$5.00 the first.

Prizes. $3.00 the second, and

$2.00 the third.

Write a letter addressed as shown:

L. A. W. BULLETIN, Oct. 14.

Ad. Critic.

BOSTON,

MASS.

Please be sure to write " Ad. Critic" and date in lower left-hand corner.

State which advertisement in this issue you consider best adapted to influence buyers in favor of the goods it advertises, and why.

It is hardly competent to say that you were influenced by a certain ad. because you happened at the moment to want the particular article advertised, but it is desirable that you state which advertisement is, in your opinion, best calculated to attract the favorable notice of the average reader, irrespective of his immediate wants.

We want to know which advertiser utilizes his space to the best advantage.

Also, state which advertisement is, in your opinion, least likely to be profitable to the advertiser, and why. Select from this number of the L.A. w. BULLETIN three advertisements in which you see most room for improvement. Tell us what is the matter with them, and what you can suggest in each case to make them more effective.

Substitute an entirely new advertisement in any case, if you prefer to, but always give reasons for proposed changes.

To the writers of the best three letters we will send (on Oct. 28,) checks for $5.00, $3.00 and $2.00, as above.

"Wherever there are good roads the men who made them cannot now enjoy a safe and quiet pleasure drive over them on account of the swarms of bicyclists of both sexes and of every age and condition who monopolize the track, toward the making and maintaining of which not one in fifty has ever contributed a cent."

Since bicycles are road-improvers instead of roaddestroyers, as are steel-shod horses and steel-tired vehicles, the amount cyclists pay toward maintaining the highways for the pleasure of those who drive is a public gift. But what right have "swarms of bicyclists of both sexes and of every age and condition on a public road, anyway? Cyclists have no more right to ride on a highway they did not build than pedestrians have to walk on a sidewalk

or pavement which they did not personally pay for. Is n't it a shame that people in moderate circumstances have found a way of enjoying themselves? These "swarms" including bankers, professors, preachers, merchants, mechanics, ladies, and gentlemen should be put down. O, Democracy! thou art a beautiful dream, but you won't quite do for the editor of the News. And his is the sort of stuff some of the farmers are being fed on. But the slow nibble of Time will eat away the barriers to Progress. Someday there will be a funeral or something, and then that editorial chair will be filled by a wiser, better, broader thinker, one who thinks with his brain.

THE CHAMPION BABY.

NIXON WATERMAN.

BABY'S come to our house to make his home with us; He keeps the gas a-burning nights, and kicks up lots of fuss.

He bosses everybody 'round and makes 'em walk the floor,

And howls until he has his way and then he howls some more.

I dance and toss and trot him, but he will not go to sleep,

Until, at times, I'm half convinced I'd sell him mighty cheap;

And yet his mother tells this czar, who has my patience worn, That he 's "the nicest, cutest, bestest baby ever born!"

EVOLUTION OF THE CYCLE.

XIX. Women's Wheels.-1887-1891.

The next English drop-frame was patented on Feb. 21, 1887, by R. J. Russell, whose object, like Latta's, in making a U frame, was to build the machine safer in case of a fall, and not specifically to adapt it to feminine use. He was followed in September by Christopher Grant, who patented another dropframe, specifying that it could be "ridden by females in ordinary dress."

In the meantime great activity was being displayed in the United States. H. S. Owen and W. E. Smith had long been intent on constructing bicycles for women's use and had given much consideration to the subject. But G. T. Warwick was before them in applying for a patent for one. On May 18, 1887, he filed an application which was granted June 17 of the next year. In the fall of '87, however, Owen had manufactured some wheels and Smith had organized a company for the same purpose. Owen's first wheel is now in the National Museum at Wash ington.

H. S. OWEN'S SAFETY- 1887.

On one of the first drop-frames made, Mr. Owen

had taught his niece to ride. She was a pretty school-girl, and great care was exercised in the undertaking in order to make the best possible impression on the public and to arouse no unnecessary prejudices which might hamper the adoption of bicycles by women. Late in the fall Mr. Owen went to England and interested Starley Brothers in women's wheels and placed an order with them. In May, 1888, he received his first lot of ladies' Psychos.

In the meantime, Jan. 1888, Mr. Smith had completed and exhibited three ladies' wheels and Mrs. Smith had taken her first public ride down Pennsylvania avenue, escorted by some other riders.

W. E. SMITH'S DART-1888.

This was probably the first public ride on a modern safety by an adult woman. Once taken, the ice was broken, and the activity of the women's bicycle club, which

was soon after

wards organized in Washington, did much to introduce bicycling for women and make it popular in the United States.

On Feb. 16, 1888, both Smith and Owen filed applications for patents, the former obtaining them on Nov. 13, 1888, and May 14, 1889, and the latter on Feb. 26, 1889. On Nov. 20, 1888, Smith also obtained a 66 design patent" for a frame like the picture, which much resembled those of De Forville and Stevens, and on Dec. 18, J. M. Starley and H. S. Owen secured a "design patent" for a Psycho frame which was an improvement on Owen's first safety. The same year saw a drop-frame with a quadrant-like steering, patented by H. E. House, and the first Elliott hickory bicycles was built.

Bicycling for women was now established in this country and growing slowly in popularity; but in England it was still frowned upon, and it was several years later before it became popular there. Nevert heless, several English makers were building dropframe machines. In 1890 they were, of course, fitted with solid tires, and not

with cushions,

PSYCHO-1890.

as shown in the picture illustrating the Psycho. In this country the principal makers were putting drop-frames on the market and producing good machines. Almost from the outset many of them were better designed and constructed than any built elsewhere, and this superiority they have maintained. About this time a second hickory bicycle, the Common-Sense, was brought out; but, though wooden